Negro Casas, Black Magic y Mano Negra vs. Mocho Cota, Bestia Salvaje y Emilio Charles Jr., CMLL 5/13/94

Jesus, Cota, Salvaje and Emilio! Check out the mugs on those three.

This was rudos contra rudos and started off with some nifty matwork between Black Magic and Salvaje. It's been a while since I've seen Bestia look good in a match and I was instantly reminded of what an underrated talent he was. It was also the best Smiley has looked on the mat in CMLL, which was a nice surprise. Mano Negra and Emilio followed suit and were rock solid. Negra continued his inspired post mask loss run, which was miles better than the lead in to his apuesta match. As they grappled, Cota began stirring trouble from the apron in his usual maniacal fashion. The camera stayed on for quite some time and it was interesting watching him snap from one extreme to the other. As soon as Casas was in, he went straight after Cota, so I'm guessing this was early build towards their hair match. Cota ended up taking over and Bestia impressed me to no end with the sharpness of his rudo beatdown on Smiley. Great punches. A quick search of the Match Finder found no trace of a singles match. The things we miss out on. Emilio helped beat the shit out of Casas to end the fall, thus beginning perhaps the best thread to the match, Emilio vs. Casas. It's not every day you see Emilio Charles Jr and Casas work together, so you better drop what you're doing and watch this. While that particular ass kicking was going on, Bestia was giving one of the patrons a nice up close look at how great his punches look from a foot away.

Casas sold his beating like he was in another postal code. At one point, he was trying to punch his way out of the corner and collapsed, desperately lunging at Cota's tights. There was some weird storyline going on where Smiley was trying to help Casas but Negra wasn't. I'm sure it didn't make much sense even in Spanish. Negra then tried this cool choke takedown on Cota, but the Cota team were no mugs in the ring. Bestia threw the most beautiful left hand I think I've ever seen, and of course Cota was in the thick of it all like some kind of vindictive ringmaster. Casas popped back up on the apron in a not-so-great moment of selling, but if you're going to pop up on the apron to lead your side's comeback then there's no better way than the headbutt he gave Cota to turn the tide. Unfortunately, Smiley's retaliatory beatdown of Bestia wasn't in the same league as the one he'd had dished out to him, but it got the job done. There was an amusing moment between falls when Casas began beating on Cota in front of some front row seats. The patrons cleared the seats to avoid being hurt and Casas used the woman's handbag to thrash Cota. Cota picked the thing up and flung it across to the other side of the ring, and you could see the woman aghast about her handbag. Eventually, the ref handed it back to her companion while Cota did his best Terry Funk impersonation and tried to pick a fight with a photographer.

The third caida started with a series of exchanges where teammates were making saves for one another until finally it came down to Cota and Negra with no one from Negra's side willing to help him. Negra threw a punch at Casas, who was hugging the apron, but as you'd expect by now there was no big angle. Instead we got more Casas vs. Emilio and God was it great. The finishing stretch was a lot of fun with Cota doing a hilarious punch drunk sell off a Smiley body check then getting caught in a bear hug submission. But as Smiley was shaking Cota all over the ring, Casas ran straight into an Emilio power bomb and that was the match one, two, three. Not a vintage performance from Casas kayfabe wise. The match was fun, though there's definitely better rudos contra rudos stuff out there. Cota was good, but didn't have the same aura as his 80s stuff and was a bit of a sideshow act compared to his godliness on the 80s set. Still, he managed to amuse.